Friday, March 3, 2017

Ennio Morricone - Il Gatto A Nove Code (1971, LP, Italy)

Il Gatto A Nove Code (The Cat O'Nine Tails), filmed in 1971, is the second film by Dario Argento, a horror thriller still distant from his horror works for which he would later become famous on an international level. The collaboration with the composer and conductor Ennio Morricone, already known for his work on Sergio Leone's western movies, is here renewed after the success of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and will continue with the third installment of the 'zoological trilogy', Four Flies on Grey Velvet.
When the previous soundtrack for Argento's first movie had proved to be a really tough listen, here Morricone goes even further, creating a really dissonant and avant-garde sound, with practically one single basis theme in the form of a few essential bass guitar notes. In those same years, after all, the Maestro was part of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, and the films of Dario Argento provided the perfect terrain where Morricone could experiment, without any boundaries.